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November 25, 2002
Tragedies and Statistics
My sister nearly threw her car keys out with the trash last week, (and I guess she tends to misplace them in general), so my mom bought her a self-locating key fob: A person just needs to give a little whistle, and the key fob will hear the whistle and start chirping. The missing car keys can then be found by listening for the audible clue.
Well, at least that's how it's supposed to work. In reality, it turns out that common household noises like that from radios, televisions, and even laughter can result in false-positives. The unsought keys suddenly draw themselves unwanted and even hostile attention, kind of like a redneck at a tea party. Frustrated, my sister burried the plaintively chirping key fob in the bottom of her husband's sock drawer.
Believe it or not, I actually spent many long hours last night feeling the pain of the poor unloved key fob. Sometimes I find inanimate objects to be much more lovable than living, breathing things, but in this case I also couldn't help but feel sorry for whoever designed the misbegotten fob. In my mind I have the image of a poor inventor, desperately trying to eke out his daily bread by selling truckloads of chirping key fobs. A Gepetto-ish character, whose only creation is a dead and lifeless Pinocchio, and this time there isn't going to be a Fairy Godmother or Magic Wand to Save The Day. This story doesn't end in success but instead in tragedy, as the key-fob buyers of the world pack Pinocchio back in the box and look for the receipt.
And that's the problem: I want everyone to succeed, everyone to be happy, everyone to have peace. It makes me sad to think of failures, even if it's just a key fob. But you can't have a free market system without risks and failure.
To paraphrase Stalin, "The death of one man's dream is the tragedy of capitalism, while the death of a million dreams is just a statistic of communism."
Posted by crandal at November 25, 2002 03:24 PM